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Is Putin right?

Recently it is reported that Putin compared the question of democritzation of Russia to colonialism. Here is an excerpt:

[excerpt]Putin ? using almost identical words in his interviews with both NBC and France?s LCI ? likened such criticism to the self-serving philosophy of the colonialists, who justified their conquests by the need to civilize the natives.

?We well know what it led to. If we change ?civilizing role? to ?democratization?, then you could substitute newspapers of a hundred years ago with those today,? he told LCI.

[end excerpt]

You might want to read the article to get the context under which he said the above words.

The world has been changing. In these times, communications have grown faster and transportation has improved; causing faster movement of both people and ideas. A region that is not fully yet democratized can affect democracies in myraid ways - positive and negative.

In essense we have means to reduce geographical and cultural isolations. We want it or not, there is globalization that impacts nations now more than in the past.

Is it fair for the democracies of the world to insist and spread its brand of democracy onto other parts of the world?

I am little torn, I do not think his comparison is 100% tenable, but agree with the views of thrusting our principles on to others.

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Are there societies that are not ready for democracy?

If we look at most western democarcies, they were formed internally by revolution, evolution, or both. Can an effective democracy be forced on a nation? Iraq is an interesting experiment in progress.

Islamist governments pose as theocracies. A theocracy seems to me as an abdication of democracy. Adherents allow themselves to be lead by their faith and since they follow the tenets of their religion without serious questions, they follow their political/religious leaders the same way. Absent a grassroots movement for change accepted by a majority, how can it be a democracy? It's just a change from one oligarchy to another.

Not really

Putin is right in that Cheney should shut up and leave Russia alone. Cheney was out of line.

However, Putin is wrong to equate democracisation with colonialism. The Soviet USSR was into forced colonialisation for many decades, and Putin was involved in the management system that supported that. Colonialism is where you take over another country and run it to the advantage of your country or your citizens. Democracisation, when properly done, is where a totalitarian regime, of any sort, is replaced with a regime that is much more representative of the country's citizens. The biggest problem is that many countries spend a lot of effort working out ways to limit who gets classed as a citizen and thus gets a vote.

Proper democracisation is the exact opposite of colonialisation. Now if Putin wanted to have a shot at captilistic encroachment, then he might have a better chance. One of the big issues for countries moving from a totalitarian regime to a democracy is that they need investment capital and financial sound existing external companies can exert an undue influence on the development of the new country's commercial sector to the detriment of the country and the prfit of the external company - any organisation with a lot of money to invest can exert such an influence.

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